college credit in high school

[Holly IN]

Friend of mine is wanting to go with this route. I told her it is not what is cracked up to be.

 

If you did this, was it successful as promised? Negatives? Anything she should know?

 

I told her that alot of colleges do not accept dual credit from another college.

 

Holly

[K-FL]

Well, here in FL, all the state schools (U & cc) have agreements that all credits must be accepted. Many of the in-state private schools will do the same, esp. if you come to transfer in w/an AA or AS. As to going to the "pedigree" schools, they're private & can accept or not as they see fit. I spoke w/someone at the King's College (NYC) last year & they consider all dual enrollment as honor's classes. Of course, they have a very classical curriculum so the standard cc class wouldn't be a direct transfer anyway. I've also spoken w/one of the prof.s at our cc who formerly was at a private college & was in on transfer credit decisions & she said she always allowed them if they were from an accredited school.

 

Also a concern many have is in regard to scholarships/aid. There are transfer scholarships & if dc are honor's students at the cc level, they can get honor's scholarships at u. level. My dd is a member of Phi Theta Kappa & she gets letters all the time offering 1/2 tuition just on membership alone.

 

HTH1

[Michelle in GA]

There was one small downside. He is a freshman in college right now, and although his college accepted all of his credits for his degree, they would not allow all those "A's" to count toward his GPA. Since he is at a rather difficult(tech) school, he wishes he would have saved some of the "easier" courses(at least at this school), like English 101,102, Psych101,POS101,etc. for this school, to strengthen his GPA. HOwever, because he did not have to take these courses, it left extra time to stusy for the harder ones. Sometimes it is hard to know which way is best.

[Tokyomarie]

Friend of mine is wanting to go with this route. I told her it is not what is cracked up to be.

 

If you did this, was it successful as promised? Negatives? Anything she should know?

 

I told her that alot of colleges do not accept dual credit from another college.

 

Holly

 

It really depends on how many college classes the student plans, where he/she plans to go on for full time study after high school, and the ultimate purpose for doing college classes during the high school years.

 

I personally found it helpful for my teens to do at least a handful of credits at the college level- at the community college and/or online. We don't have an option for "free" dual enrollment unless our children are also taking at least one class at the local high school, so I have paid for those credits myself- at the higher out-of-district rate, too, because our county does not have a CC.

 

My main reasons for having my students take dual enrollment classes (not all applied to both students):

 

need for additional challenge- my oldest needed to do calculus & had already completed the basic 3 high school sciences at home. I was not about to homeschool true freshman college level classes- I NEEDED her to move on and we didn't have resources for AP at the time, so CC it was.

 

the opportunity to adjust to college level classroom expectations with a few classes before having to do it full-time- definitely an advantage for us. Neither of my girls were surprised by the routines of the classroom when they moved away and took on the reponsibility full-time.

 

My main requirement for my students to take dual enrollment classes is that they be ready to take a standard college freshman level class in the subject. We would not have them take a class that would be considered remedial at a 4 year university- just our way, I figure I can homeschool or use a high school level tutorial for those subjects.

[Janet in WA]

Our sons earned dual credit during high school. It was a very good experience, and something we'd definitely do again if we had that choice. All of our sons' cc credits transferred to their universities. But even if they hadn't, those credits added weight to our sons' transcripts, and improved their standing for admission to those universities. Really, for us, it was very much "what it was cracked up to be". :)

[Gwen in VA]

The college my older two attend/will attend in the fall will not give credit for any cc classes. Period.

 

If you are interested in doing cc classes for the college credit, call likely colleges and make sure that they will give credit for the classes.

 

There is nother reason to take cc classes though -- the education they provide (both academic and real-life skills). Ds1 took a cc class and we found it beneficial -- he learned a lot about being in a "real" classroom and dealing with transportation issues. He has taken a lot of online classes, but the cc class was certainly helpful for him.

[Leta]

Even if you know that the credits won't transfer, I would still advise every h.s. junior/senior to take one two college classes, if for no other reason than to learn about the following:

 

how to park and find buildings and classrooms on campus

 

how to schedule a class

 

how to read a syllabus

 

how to interact with a prof

 

how to approach a classmate for notes if you miss a class

 

how to read the gen ed/liberal arts requirements and their class summaries

 

etc.

[Alyce]

We chose to do cc for many of the same reason already stated: 1) get used to what a college class is all about 2) see what it's like to take what would be in our state a one year course in 4 months 3) add weight to her college application.

In NC most CC classes transfer to the state colleges and many of the private colleges. I would definitely check with some of the colleges she interested in to see if the accept. To us that made a huge difference to what courses she took at CC. She will be going to UNCC in the fall and on their website they had all the courses they accept from our particular CC and what they counted as at UNCC. In NC you have to take 3 classes at home so she would not be able to carry a full load at CC but she carried 3 each semester. Thanks to the info on UNCC web page she will be going in with a full semester under her belt and many of the 2 year classes out of the way. It's been a valuable learning experience for her. She saw how she had to juggle doing many term papers at once. This semester she had to do 4 and they were all due within 3 weeks of each other and 2 of them had to be 2500 words or more with 7 sources. She really had to hit things hard to keep up but she's learning somethings that work and some that don't. That will save her some grief when she finally gets to college. She's also done several on-line courses and decided she doesn't like them and does better in a class room situation. In NC we also don't have to pay tuition but we do have to buy books. That was a drawback for us but other than that it's been a great learning experience

[Kareni]

Even if you know that the credits won't transfer, I would still advise every h.s. junior/senior to take one two college classes, if for no other reason than to learn about the following:

 

... how to read a syllabus

 

how to interact with a prof ...

 

My teen is taking some community college classes in part to make her a stronger candidate when applying to college. We would like her to enter college as a freshman; therefore, it is not our intention to have the credits transfer.

 

I do agree with Leta particularly as regards to learning how to read a syllabus and learning how to interact with different professors with their differing styles of conducting a class. In some ways, my daughter has learned less that regards to content and more that pertains to personalities!

 

Regards,

Kareni